What Is There To Look Forward To In 2022?

There may have not been many certainties in 2021, (or even in 2020 for that matter), but if anything has been made crystal clear over the past year - it's that hope is a powerful thing. This year taught us restrictions and lockdowns do not last forever and - despite many preconceived thoughts - everything really is temporary.

Whether we're heading towards another nationwide imposed lockdown, or a review of current restrictions (who knows at this point), 2022 holds the promise of better things to come. Desperate to escape the car crash that was 2021? From exhibitions to fashion and an imminent digital future, we've compiled a cultural list of everything we're looking forward to in 2022.

Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer at V&A Dundee

Michael Clark is fashion's favourite dancer. Early in January 2021, the late icon's grand retrospective Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer closed prematurely. This was one of the many crushing blows faced by the Barbican this year in a domino effect of galleries and museums up and down the country closing their doors in an attempt to curb the dreaded Corona. However, the good news is that the exhibition has travelled up to the V&A in Scotland, so if you missed the spectacular Florence Ostende-curated show (with the help of Charles Atlas), now is your chance.

See more details here.

Surrealism Beyond Borders at Tate Modern

The last two years have been nothing but surreal, with time considered a foreign concept wedged between multiple lockdowns, public closures and reopenings. If the pandemic taught us anything, it was the power of the dream; a dream for a life far away - the ultimate escapism. The surrealists knew this better than anyone else, and so in a very timely manner, Southbank's Tate Modern have prepared an exhibition dedicated to the surrealists of the 20th century that continue to influence the art of today.

See more details here.

Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear at the V&A

What is menswear? What are the boundaries (if any) imposed by the term, and how have we gradually overcome these in recent times? From Harry Styles donning a Harris Reed custom dress on the cover of Vogue this year to the less recent stylishly put together Ziggy Stardust, who not only challenged menswear but the man-made construct of gender altogether - an upcoming V&A exhibition next year pulls all these references together. Exploring how designers, tailors and artists – and their clients and sitters – have constructed and performed masculinity, the V&A blockbuster exhibition will unpick the topic of menswear, old and new, at its very seams, thread by thread.

See more details here.

Francis Bacon: Man and Beast at The Royal Academy

Francis Bacon: Man and Beast was one of the many exhibitions that suffered under COVID-19 restrictions last year. With galleries not opened long into the new year, The Royal Academy, unfortunately, decided to push back the retrospective's date from January 2021 to January 2022. Fortunately for us, the wait is nearly over! Although many exhibitions have focused on Bacon's flesh-like surrealistic paintings, London's The Royal Academy have decided to hone in on the artist's bloody, ritual-esque fascination with animals. Looking to the more sinister side of our furry friends, Bacon told The Art Newspaper in 1992, 'Ham, pigs, tongues, sides, of beef seen in the butcher's window, all that death, I find it very beautiful', a beauty highlighted throughout the exhibition.

See more details here.

Ann Demeulemeester to show at Pitti Immagine Uomo 101

The cult Belgian label returned to the catwalk back in September, having been relaunched by entrepreneur and New Guards Group founder Claudio Antonioli last year. The brand is on track for a new golden era - one which the designer herself has said to be pleased with, having left the creative direction position of her eponymous label back in 2013. Now designed in Milan, it may come as no surprise that the luxury label will be showing as the special guest at the Pitti Immagine Uomo 101 fair in Florence in January. It's not entirely clear what's in store for the brand's guest appearance at the menswear trade show, but the announcement has undoubtedly aroused a stir of much-needed excitement.

Virgil Abloh's pre-fall 2022 collection to show at Paris Men's Week

Virgil Abloh's tragic passing may have hit deadlines globally last month, but that doesn't mean we've seen the last of his creative genius. The designer's recently launched final collection for Louis Vuitton (all of which was completed and photographed before Abloh's passing on 28 November 2021), will show at Paris Men's Week in January. the pre-fall 2022 collection draws on the late designer's fantastical idealisation of boyhood - a trope he stuck to from the beginning to the very end of his time at Louis Vuitton, which was also celebrated at the Virgil Was Here show in Miami.

The Metaverse

2021 was not only the year fashion succumbed to NFTs (non-fungible tokens) but also the year that saw the industry fully embrace other technologies too - CGI, AR and AI included - in preparation for the oncoming arrival of the Metaverse; confirmed by Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook (now called Meta), announcement a couple of months ago. The Metaverse, aka the internet 3.0, is approximately 20 years off. Intrigued as ever by the capabilities of the internet and a digital future, our founder and director Nick Knight recently made an announcement outlining the next steps for SHOWstudio as a virtual, all-immersive digital platform, building on our legacy as one of the first to champion fashion film, 3D scanning and printing and live-streaming in fashion.

Excited by the prospect of an all-encompassing digital future, Knight said in a statement, 'Never before has the human race been able to meet, talk and experience events in the way we will be able to do so when immersed in the Metaverse.' Stay tuned for more in 2022…